


Boomerang

by lalaluma



Series: Through A Window [1]
Category: South Park
Genre: M/M, Slow Build, Stan/Wendy is only mentioned in passing, Unrequited Love, tho it is resolved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-02
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2018-05-17 19:53:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5883508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalaluma/pseuds/lalaluma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Large blue eyes met his narrow green ones, and not for the first time Michael wished he could drown in them and end the suffering that was loving Stan Marsh unconditionally and unrequited.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Boomerang

**Author's Note:**

> So innocent and terrified  
> Whoa, never gonna let you down, down, down, down.  
> I beg for you to send them away  
> You only want to disobey me  
> Throw your boomerang, boomerang  
> Throw yourself away

No one had ever worked their way into the inner circle of the goths quite as quickly as Stan Marsh. There had been plenty of kids who would join the goths for a couple weeks before leaving, but they were always kept on the outside. But within a week Stan had somehow pushed past all their barriers. Maybe it was because he spoke passionately about a pain none of them had really known at that point in their lives, or his willingness to adapt, but whatever it was he was in. He was as much a part of the group as the rest of them.

 

Michael built him up. He gave Stan his old clothes, leant him his cane, taught him how to act and speak so the rest of the goths would accept him. He held Stan’s face still as he applied eyeshadow to his lower lid everyday until the boy stopped flinching at it and repainted his nails every time they chipped. Michael had even pierced Stan’s ear for him and given him the other earing to his set. He had pierced the opposite side so they had matched and everything.

 

And then Stan left.

 

Michael had been furious. How dare he? He thought he could just come in and make Michael trust him and then just fucking leave? He felt a lurching pain, a sudden drop in his chest, and to his horror he realized he now knew the pain Stan had joined them with. Stan had done more than betray them as a group, he had personally attacked Michael, and he didn’t even know it. 

 

That ended up being what Michael was most angry about. The rest of the goths got over Stan’s treason with time, toning down scathing words to simply flipping him off and ignoring him, but Michael stayed mad for a very long time. He wanted his feelings and his bitterness toward Stan to fade but they didn’t, not really. They stuck to him and dragged him down. Sometimes they were lighter than others, but they were ever-present. He wrote about a thousand poems about it. The other goths adored them.

 

Eventually he gave up trying to fight the emotions that came in Stan’s wake. He was the first of the group to reinitiate contact that wasn’t exclusively negative with Stan. He even agreed to do that dumb dance group with him. Michael needed the younger boy to know he could rely on him, but would never say as much. And throughout the years, when Stan and Wendy would get back together and inevitably break up, Stan would come back to him to cry and tell Michael about how horrible she was and how he was never making that mistake again. Michael was unsure if Stan was lying, or if he genuinely believed himself.

 

Then, at some point, Stan stopped needing an excuse.

 

He would just wander over to Michael’s house from time to time. Or text him out of the blue. Secretly, he loved it. It still hurt, being this close to Marsh and being just friends, even if they were very good friends. But Michael cared less about that now. At the very least he got to be around Stan. He got to have Stan at his most vulnerable, a side he only showed to a very select few, and that was almost more intimate than what he had with Wendy.

 

Michael had Stan sat across from him on his bed while he painted the younger boy’s nails and Marsh poured his heart out. He had Stan reading the poetry he still wrote, and listening to the ones Michael could never share with the other goths. He had Stan’s desperate texts for emotional validation at two in the morning. His messes of texts when he succumbed to the allure of alcohol. He had everything that Wendy could never have, would never have.

 

But still he ached and yearned for more.

 

And Michael really couldn’t help feeling a tug of hope at getting a call from Stan in the middle of the night, proclaiming his love for the lanky goth. Even if he was always clearly drunk, and even if Michael would just sigh and tell him to drink water and go to bed, he wanted desperately to hear those words when Stan was sober. Even if only platonically, knowing Stan loved him would be enough. He hoped.

 

Then something interesting happened. Stan came to him, late in the night, knocking on his second story window like it wasn’t stupid and dangerous to be  _ that  _ far out on the branch he was perched on. He didn’t even ask to come in, just fumbled his way through the frame when Michael opened the window. For a while, Stan bit his tongue about what he wanted to really talk about. It was obvious to Michael from the way he fidgeted and laughed nervously. But he wouldn’t force him to talk. Michael simply applied a matte top coat to Stan’s still black nails and let him decide when to speak. He knew, in his heart, that Stan was not here to confess to him the way he hoped. That dream died long ago. But he still hoped. 

 

The playlist Michael had put on looped, and Stan checked to see if his nails were still tacky. When he found his fingers no longer left imprints on the now dulled surface, he shoved his hand into his front pocket. Stan pulled out a small, silver cross drop earring. The same earring Michael had given him years ago. The lanky goth held his breath to keep from reacting. For a few moments, Marsh turned over the jewelry a few times in his fingers, trying to find his voice.

 

“I...would you mind? um. Could you re-pierce my ear?”

 

After clearing his throat a few times, Michael agreed. He left Stan in his room as he snuck downstairs to grab an ice cube and a cork. Honestly, he expected the younger boy to have vanished by the time he returned, and was shocked to see he was still there. Waiting. He handed over the ice cube and Stan instinctively placed it on the ear Michael had pierced when he was eleven. From a small box on his dresser, Michael produced a hollow needle and a lighter.

 

Sitting close to the other, he ran the flame along the needle. He asked Stan no less than three times if he was sure about this between the time he sterilized the needle, placed the cork behind his ear, and had the tip of the needle pressed to the scar of the spot he had pierced before. Stan joked about Michael not being this worried when they were younger, and the older used this as a distraction and pushed the metal through.

 

Stan cursed quietly as Michael lined up the same earring he had used before in the center of the needle and pushed the whole thing out. Gently, he replaced the backing. The skin was a little red and tender, but the Marsh boy appeared to have actually relaxed quite a bit. Which certainly made this all that much more...interesting.

 

For a while, Stan laid on the other’s bed, legs hanging off and eyes closed, hands closed around the ice cube until it was no more. He looked peaceful. Michael wondered if he might fall asleep. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d come to Michael to get something off his chest only to fall asleep after, leaving Michael to lay awake for hours and pet his hair and think about how horrible this arrangement was.

 

Turning off his bedroom light, he resigned himself to another such a night. He stripped down to his boxers in the cover of darkness and pulled on a pair of pajama pants. Normally, he slept in the nude. But he could never bring himself to when Stan was around, even if the younger was usually the one who invited himself over. He pushed at Stan’s shoulder, trying to rouse him enough to move so they could both lay properly on the bed. The moon shone brightly through the window adjacent his bed, and gleamed proudly off the sliver of the earring that had found it’s way back where it belonged. With as much softness as he could, Michael lifted the cross and observed it in his fingers, thinking the whole thing was very symbolic.

 

The younger shifted, jarring the earring from his grasp. Large blue eyes met his narrow green ones, and not for the first time Michael wished he could drown in them and end the suffering that was loving Stan Marsh unconditionally and unrequited. Allowing himself a moment of physical intimacy with the noirette to stave off his desires for however much longer before Stan would appear before him once more, Michael gently ran his fingers over sun kissed cheeks with a ghost of a smile. Stan’s eye’s fluttered shut once more, only opening slowly when the contact left.

 

Michael was sure his heart had stopped. That he was finally free from this mortal world. He was stupidly in love with this dumb boy.

 

As struck with the current realization of affection as he was, Michael hadn’t quite noticed how close the object of his affections had become until their noses brushed. He jolted slightly, but held his ground. There was not even the hint of liquor on Stan’s breath, which he could feel softly pushing against his own lips. His hands were cold and still a little wet as they found their way to the close shaved underside of Michael’s head, but he couldn’t force himself to care as he was roughly yanked down into a harsh kiss.

 

Much like everything Stan did, it was without grace. Though Michael would not have it any other way. This was him at his absolute purest, undiluted by standards and expectations. Despite the rough start, the kiss itself evened out into something much more gentle. Michael realized the forcefulness was probably something akin to submerging yourself completely in water to get it over with.  Too soon, Stan pulled away, short of breath and cheeks tinted a lovely pink.

 

“Thanks. For...everything, really.”

 

“It’s-um.” Michael cleared his throat, hoping his voice would not crack again. “It’s nothing.”

  
Stan smiled slowly. He only now allowed himself to be moved into an acceptable sleeping position. He curled himself around Michael in a familiar manner. This night, when the older lay awake for hours petting Stan’s soft hair, Stan lay awake with him, before they both inevitably let sleep take them.

**Author's Note:**

> I cranked this out in one night after re-watching Raisins.  
> The title and beginning notes are from Boomerang by Miniature Tigers. This fic wasn't really inspired by that song in anyway, but it seemed fitting.  
> Big fucking shout out to my RP partner satanwasinsideme over on tumblr. She has shaped how I write older Stan.  
> If you want to see more of Michael characterized in a similar way, I run a roleplay/ask blog for him over at graveyardviking.tumblr.com  
> Idk I might write more for this, but it will be posted as it's own fic. This fic is finished, and I do not see myself adding to it.


End file.
